Ver. 1. Let not your heart, &c.] Our Saviour sweetly proceeds in his swan-like song. Aelian tells us that he once heard a dying swan sing most heavenly and harmoniously, ευφωνοτατον και ωδικωτατον. (Hist. Var. lib. i.) The poet shows the manner of it, when he saith —“ longa canoros Dat per colla modos”— Of the Syrens (on the contrary) it is reported, that how sweetly soever they sang before, yet at death they make a horrid noise and unpleasant roaring. Morris articulo instante, et sanguine male affecto valde horride mugiunt Sirenes. Likewise, good men utter their best usually at last, the wine of the spirit being then strongest and liveliest in them. Whereas wicked men are then usually at worst, and go out with a stench, as the devil is said to do. And as Melancthon said of Eccius’s last wicked work, written of priests’ marriage, Non full cygnea cantio, sed ultimus crepitus: et sicut felis fugiens pedit, sic ille moriens hunc crepitura cecinit. (Melch. Adam. in Vit. Calv.) So of Baldwin the apostate, one saith that vivere simul et maledicere desiit, he died cursing, as that wretch did swearing, who desperately also desired the bystanders to help him with oaths and to swear for him.
Ver. 2. I would have told you] And not have fed you with false hopes of a Utopian happiness, as the devil deals by his, whom he brings into a fool’s paradise; as Mahomet by his, to whom he promises in paradise delicious fare, pleasant gardens, and other sensual delights eternally to be enjoyed, &c. Christ is no such impostor.
Ver. 3. I will come again, &c.] Oh, look up and long for this “consolation of Israel”; say as Sisera’s mother, “Why are his chariots” (those clouds) “so long in coming?” “ Heu pietas ubi prisca? profana o tempora! Mundi Fax! Vesper! prope Nox! o mora! Christe veni.” There may ye be also] Christ counts not himself full till he have all his members about him: hence the Church is called “the fulness of him that filleth all things,” Ephesians 1:23.
Ver. 4. And whither I go ye know] Some little knowledge they had, such as Thomas in the next verse denies to be any at all; yet Christ acknowledgeth it. The tenor of the new covenant requires no set measures of grace. The first springings in the womb of grace are precious before God, Ephesians 2:1; he blesseth our buds, Isaiah 61:11, and in our dunghill of ignorance can find out his own part of knowledge, as here.
Ver. 5. Lord, we know not whither thou goest, &c.] No, Thomas? what, are ye also ignorant? They knew, but knew not that they knew: their knowledge was yet but confused and indistinct; they saw men, but as it were walking like trees, till their eyes were better anointed with the eye-salve of the Spirit. A man (saith Gataker) may have grace, and yet not know it (as the embryo hath life, and yet knoweth it not), yea, he may think he hath it not, as we seek for keys that are in our pockets; or think we have lost a jewel, that we locked up in our chest: yea, as the butcher looketh for the candle that sticketh in his hat, by the light of what he seeketh.
Ver. 6. I am the way, and the truth, &c.] As if he should say, Thou hast no whither to go but to me, nor which way to go but by me, that thou mayest attain eternal life. Which made Bernard say, Sequemur, Domine, te, per te, ad te: Te quia Veritas, per te quia Via, ad te quia Vita. God, we will follow you, through you, to you: because you are the truth, through you because you are the way, to you because you are the life. And this was one of those sweet sayings that old Beza had much in his mouth a little before his death. (Melch. Adam. in Vitis exter.) No man cometh unto the Father, but by me] Christ hath paved us a new and living way to God, with his own meritorious blood: and his flesh stands as a screen between us and those everlasting burnings, Isaiah 33:14. Let Papists say of their saints, Per hunc itur ad Deum, sed magis per hunc. Through him is the way to God, but greater through him. Let us say of all their he and she saints, as that heathen, Contemno minutos istos Deos, modo Iovem (Iesum) propitium habeam. I despise such petty gods, but let us have the propious Jesus.
Ver. 7. And from henceforth ye know him] Or else the more shame for you, having had me (his express image) so long among you. Christians have a privilege above the Church of the Old Testament. The sea about the altar was brazen, 1 Kings 7:23, and what eyes could pierce through it? Now, our sea about the throne is glassy, Revelation 4:6, like the crystal, clearly conveying the light and sight of God in Christ to our eyes.
Ver. 8. Lord, show us the Father] They would have seen the Father face to face with their bodily eyes, as they saw the Son. But that no man can do and live, Exodus 33:20. We cannot see the sun in rota, in its orbit, as the schools speak, in the circle wherein it runs, but only in the beams. So neither can we see God in his essence; in his Son we may, who is the resplendence of his Father’s glory, απαυγασμα, Hebrews 1:3.